[WR] How I formed Poland-Lithuania as Krakow in less than 24 years - Vic2 IGT Speedrun

Discover the secret superpower of Krakow in this epic adventure for the whole family!
In case you're wondering, "No R+P" stands for "No Release and Play", which is in reference to the fact that this category doesn't allow you to switch tags by releasing a satellite and switching to play as them (in which case you could've done this by for example starting as Russia and releasing Poland).
Full unedited run: • [WR] Form Poland-Lithu...
Originally streamed live on my twitch channel: / xarxos1
I have a Discord server too: / discord
Intro/Outro Music - Violet and Death, by me.
Full Song: • Violet and Death (Inst...

[@user-wh5se3cb2y]

Bruh. Imagine how this no-infantry glitch would look like irl. European leaders: why would you want to have this whole country as your puppet?? You’re just a little Krakow why are you so aggressive?? Krakow: POLAND!! POLAND!! POLAND!! POLAND!! European leaders: oh... guess you’re good now

[@xarxos5274]

Haha yeah, something like that I'd imagine, I guess it's not much weirder than cheesing revanchsim for infinite jingoism though! :D

[@caiawlodarski5339]

"You guys conquered my whole country so stfu"

[@ThiccMidgett]

I like to imagine the Krakow government releasing a tiny plot of land in the middle of nowhere as "Poland" and adding a few square meters every so often.

[@tentathesane8032]

Taiwan is like this with ROC

[@xModerax]

Next level crazy. Poles subjugating the Italians to annex Korea who then fight China to ultimatively unpartition the friggin Commonwealth. Well done mate!

[@xarxos5274]

Haha yeah these speedrun strats tend to go in... unconventional directions :) Thank you!

[@costamcostam8961]

And casually humiliating Indians on the way

[@youtuberobbedmeofmyname]

This is like the Finno Korean Hyperwar

[@ahndos6272]

Dont forget he invaded sikkim

[@francogiobbimontesanti3826]

How to form Poland Lithuania. Puppet Two Sicilies Invade Egypt Walk you troops across Asia Annex Korea For Poland Lithuania

[@xarxos5274]

I'd say you missed a few steps there at the end, but maybe they're not so important ;)

[@orlandocr2061]

Wow this is a tripoli-tier difficult run

[@xarxos5274]

Oh I wouldn't say that, Tripoli is on a whole other level compared to just about every other start in the game! But Krakow isn't the easiest either, for sure :)

[@kaitthenoscoper]

@@xarxos5274 I've never seen a strategy for playing tripoli, i think it would be interesting

[@TheNeXTGUI]

the difference is that krakow starts with literacy, tripoli doesnt

[@xarxos5274]

@@TheNeXTGUI I'd the say the main difference is that Tripoli starts in a war against the Ottomans which will result in their annexation if they lose. Every other difference is pretty secondary I'd say :P

[@plusxz821]

@@kaitthenoscoper kzbin.info/www/bejne/hJPJip-pmrKMbck It's in spanish but i think it's worth it, my man beated the ottomans with tripoli

[@KarolusImperator]

"That's right, we're going to conquer Korea!" I've discovered the world of Vicky 2 speedrunning strats and by God, it's the most funniest.

[@downedcrane7165]

Such a blessed borders in the end!

[@xarxos5274]

This is probably definitely what the Polish separatists had in mind for their ideal nation!

[@varhYT]

Admittedly, you do look like somebody who would form Poland in 24 years as Krakow in Vic2

[@xarxos5274]

I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment, an insult, or neutral observation.

[@Anonie324]

@@xarxos5274 Yes.

[@staszek6453]

Its nice to see my city conquering colonies in Korea and Italy

[@xarxos5274]

Oh you're actually from Krakow? Well you guys are tougher than one might think! :D

[@grantforester1864]

The power move that is adding all of Russia to your sphere with them not missing any land is amazing. Too bad about krakows borders lol

[@xarxos5274]

Yeah I thought it was funny :D

[@CracowProductions]

As a person from Kraków This is based

[@gridemann]

Wtf did I just watch. Victoria 2 speedruns are truly something else. Impressive !

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you!

[@KoW4LsKy]

As someone who live in Kraków I admire your speedrun, but on the other hand would love to see this city in real live as Free Coty once again :D

[@xarxos5274]

Oh well, you never know, you just gotta start planning that invasion of Korea and you should be good! ;)

[@KoW4LsKy]

@@xarxos5274 now you can invide Korea twice :D

[@ogscale9756]

Big fan of this style of content, this video and the ottoman rum one were highly entertaining to watch. I'd love to see more!

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you very much! I do enjoy making this kind of video so you can definitely expect to see more :)

[@davedeng2295]

Mindblowing! The exiled army exploit and the fake release exploit are just insane

[@xarxos5274]

Yeah, they're both incredibly strong!

[@Retribution_eddie]

You are the best vic2 speedruner i ever see, keep it up!

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you very much! :)

[@neonmoose315]

Me after playing Vic3: “The war itself is really out of your control tho”

[@xarxos5274]

Lol nice!

[@SharpieWaterOfficial]

Those borders at the end were not what I was expecting to see

[@xarxos5274]

I will admit that the thumbnail is at least 50% clickbait in that regard! :D

[@flopic5791]

Amazing video as always my dude!

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you mate! :)

[@pondiker7366]

Jesus, that PLC by the end of the video looks like a circumcision gone wrong

[@qazdr6]

now show me how to form Germany as Danzig

[@xarxos5274]

You can probably do something similar to what I did here tbh!

[@qazdr6]

@@xarxos5274 can't wait

[@DuLzzPKC]

ive heard that luxembourg germany is the strongest since it has french as accepted pop too. i have seen it happen but in multiplayer where the coop player played as britain. not aware if someone did it singleplayer

[@xarxos5274]

@@DuLzzPKC Someone has probably done it, but maybe nobody has made a video of it.

[@mustafaozgurokuyucu6576]

Holy shit this is so fucking impressive

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you very much! :)

[@Jesse_Dawg]

Very nice video and fantastic explanation. You are big smart

[@xarxos5274]

Haha thank you! :D

[@enriquevigo1746]

wait, so even when you form the PLC you don't get the territories from the other nations?

[@xarxos5274]

You only integrate the nations that are part of your culture group (so Poland in this case), but not those that are a different culture group (Russia and Danzig).

[@pancernyhusarz2985]

@@xarxos5274 yes exacly that. And IT accually work on vanillia with Lithuania also. All Krakow, Poland and Lithuania once relased woud accually be annexed by decision of forming Poland Lithuania. IT is more Like annexing Poland Lithuania culture group. What in this case is both Polish and Lithuanian. What mean that u can always get at least - 10 Free infamy if u form Poland Lithuania normally and not from sphere of influence of Russia or Germany to mąkę borders terrible.

[@xarxos5274]

@@pancernyhusarz2985 You're correct! I only meant that in my particular game, only Poland would be integrated because I hadn't released Lithuania.

[@pancernyhusarz2985]

@@xarxos5274 yes yes. I see and know. Just wanted to say IT as fun fact in case smb dont know.

[@xarxos5274]

@@pancernyhusarz2985 Fair enough! :)

[@charlez7416]

Vic3 speed runs gonna be sick. What do ya hope they add to the game. I think something like post 1919's start date would be sick, Eastern Europe chaos, Russian Civil war and Greece-Turkey crisis.

[@xarxos5274]

Yeah it'll be interesting! We'll see about the start dates though, it seems the trend has been to reduce the number of start dates in recent Paradox games, so it's probably unlikely they'll have one as late as 1919. But you know, there are always mods!

[@dominikdrabek4733]

Thank you for making this video. You probably don't remember, but I asked you to do it, under your Arabia video. Also you made it 1 week befor my birthday, so big thanks for this gift :)

[@xarxos5274]

Ah, well I do remember that there were people asking for this, but I think there have been several! Either way, I'm glad I could fulfill your wishes, and a belated happy birthday to you! :)

[@januzi2]

Victoria 2 - perfectly balanced game with no exploits :O This video would be perfect, but it lacks yorkshire tea :(

[@zioming]

How to reform PLC as Krakow: Step 1: Vassal-ize southern Italy Step 2: Attack Egypt Step 3: Conquer Korea

[@shashwatsinha2704]

This video was much easier to watch than your other videos

[@xarxos5274]

Oh really? How's so?

[@zoranbeader6441]

@@xarxos5274 It's a compliment. Take it and don't ask questions!

[@xarxos5274]

@@zoranbeader6441 I appreciate the compliment, I was just curious as to what made this one easier to watch so that I know what to do to make my future videos better! I'm sorry that my original response sounded a bit defensive, I didn't mean it that way.

[@5nhyfiery]

Wow u are so good at the game

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you very much! :D

[@goku.blacksa8282]

Ya quiero verlo

[@speedracer1004]

Imagine being born in the Free City of Krakow. Only to grow up and become apart of the reestablished Polish-Lithuanian Army.

[@xarxos5274]

And then imagine being born in Korea, and also grow up to become part of the reestablished Polish-Lithuanian army for some reason!

[@PolishPilot17]

Holy shit this is not what I expected but I love it

[@xarxos5274]

Haha what were you expecting? :D

[@PolishPilot17]

@@xarxos5274 Well I was expecting more of a basic Kraków run, like allying and using one of your three big neighbours to get land from the two others, then being big enough to fight em on your own and get all land to form PLC, not going to Italy, Egypt and Korea!

[@xarxos5274]

@@PolishPilot17 I see, that's understandable! Well what can I say, a speedunner's gotta speedrun! :)

[@saimon_tast4129]

You can also do "release nation" exploit as south africa, just release south africa from zulu and your capital will be durban, letting you infinity release Natalia. South africa in that way have a lot of revanchism, making it also a possible way to world conquest in vanilla

[@xarxos5274]

Ah, I didn't know about that, that's clever!

[@Maus_Indahaus]

So you can basically cheese this as Krakow to conquer half of the world by the end of the game, if you give up of the Poland

[@xarxos5274]

Yes indeed, in fact I suspect you could conquer literally the entire world starting as Krakow, they would have some unique opportunities thanks to the infamy-exploit!

[@Maus_Indahaus]

@@xarxos5274 BTW, what happens if you go over your infamy limit? Also, I remember that in late game my own population has low jingoism and doesn't allow me to conquer much, so is there a way so surpass that?

[@xarxos5274]

@@Maus_Indahaus If you go over the infamy limit before you're powerful enough, then you'll get stomped by the other great powers. Later on you'll be strong enough to take everyone on at once,. However when great wars are unlocked, being below infamy limit has the advantage that you can get other great power allies (if you're above infamy limit then nobody wants to ally you), which means you can take advantage of great wars for even quicker conquests. As for jingoism: Yes there is a way to deal with that, namely through Revanchism. You gain Revanchism when other countries hold your cores, and Revanchism increases the rate at which you gain jingoism. As Poland-Lithuania you can easily gain a ton of Revanchism from for example Russia holding your cores.

[@user-ss2ge3px1v]

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

[@epithalamia]

hey man nice video! it was very interesting to see this kind of thing bcs almost nobody play this game!! :}

[@xarxos5274]

Thank you! Although I don't think it's correct to say almost nobody plays this game, I actually think plenty of people still do, especially considering how old the game is by now!

[@hexf3248]

Good to see the guy from the criminal psychology video doing better now

[@xarxos5274]

Better to be obsessed with Vic2, indeed.

[@TheCleanerDragon]

Would it be possible to use the conquer/liberate exploit to get all of the PLC from Russia?

[@xarxos5274]

Yeah it should work, but I didn't do it here because it would probably have been more work than the strategy I did. But if you wanted to get all the PLC cores then that might just be the best way!

[@ukaszgaz6519]

true vic2 chad

[@antifasupport4840]

I remember a Bokoen1 stream on vic2 where they jokingly said ,,you should just sphere France" as Denmark. My man here decided to literally just sphere Russia as Krakow. Mad man

[@xarxos5274]

Hehe well sphering Russia is probably easier than sphering France tbh, because the vast majority of their score early game comes from their military, so once you crush it they don't have much left :)

[@user-wh5se3cb2y]

12:50 Damn. Krakow and Spain are bigger powers than Russia... I know that the Russian Empire had some flaws during Victorian era but... Paradoxes are really underestimating the Russia in their games. We were the 3rd biggest economy during the early industrialization and the strongest continental force after all

[@xarxos5274]

I mean, normally Russia is a superpower in this game; Krakow rising to a major military powerhouse and spending several years beating down Russia as much as they can isn't exactly normal circumstances! :D Also, I'm pretty sure Russia would've bounced back pretty soon after this if I had kept playing, so even this weakness is temporary.

[@user-wh5se3cb2y]

@@xarxos5274 it’s not only about that playthrough, don’t worry :) It’s just always when I’m watching gameplay of Vic2 Russia either falls to secondary power or stays in lower half or great powers + always falls in GDP because AI can’t handle the industrialization and researches. I didn’t find that problem looking at Britain, USA or Germany, they’re always at top 4 unless the player beats them

[@xarxos5274]

@@user-wh5se3cb2y Okay I understand! Yeah maybe they're a bit too weak in general, although I suspect it's just an unintended consequence of the general game mechanics rather than a conscious decision on the developers' part.

[@brandonlyon730]

And yet they still lost a war to the newly industrialized Empire of Japan.

[@user-wh5se3cb2y]

@@brandonlyon730 because we didn’t have that much power in Asia. There wasn’t any serious threat for hundreds of years

[@janmayenese]

Thanks! I just did this. USA intervened in the Korea war so I had to fight their naval invasions in Sicily. I took 3 states from China and immediately 4 more states in the Dai Nam war. I ate all of China in 1870 and sent 600K to Europe and Attila'd over everyone.

[@xarxos5274]

Nice, sounds like a good time! :D

[@Sheyl3319]

What about a tutorial on forming Germany as Luxembourg ;)

[@xarxos5274]

It's not on my current to-do list, but we'll see if I ever do it in the future I guess :P

[@Pigraider268]

This Poland-Lithuania is Poland and Lithuania less

[@xarxos5274]

To be fair, it actually has small parts of both!

[@lucabottazzi261]

Marchz marchz dabrozki!

[@sode07]

So sorry I wasnt in the premiere I forgot…

[@xarxos5274]

No worries!

[@grgaming1581]

Αυτή τη προσφορά την αναγνωρίζω παντού 🤣🤣 δεν έχω ξαναδεί Έλληνα να παίζει παραντοξ στο γτβ

[@rzu1474]

We're gonna form Poland! So first we conqor south Italy! Ok... Then we conqor Crete! Ok I guess? Then Korea! What?!

[@xarxos5274]

Makes perfect sense to me!

[@rzu1474]

@@xarxos5274 Super villean plot for sure

[@MrNonejm]

How did you do it? I don't have make puppet casus belli

[@xarxos5274]

You mean how I puppeted Two Sicilies? I just used the Justify War button on the diplomacy screen for Two Sicilies and justified a "Make Puppet" CB. Are you not able to do that?

[@MrNonejm]

@@xarxos5274 well I don't have an option to pick this CB, I guess it has something to do with Hpm mod I'm playing with. Anyway, thanks for quick response!

[@xarxos5274]

@@MrNonejm Ah, yeah it's very possible that HPM changes something about this, I would not count on my strategy working if you play with any major mod!

[@ArthelasPL]

POLSKA GUROM

[@mylandaigle7160]

And the fact he does this unmodded

[@xarxos5274]

Always! :)

[@mylandaigle7160]

@@xarxos5274 the response to this even tho the comment was a year after the video Truly dedicated to mobilizing the masses

[@xarxos5274]

@@mylandaigle7160 As long as KZbin gives me a notification when someone comments (which it doesn't always do :( ) then I'm happy to reply :D

[@bigboyman5743]

Can you redo the run in HFM or GFM mods?

[@xarxos5274]

I don't think so I'm afraid, I haven't played either of those mods and the speedrunning leaderboards are only for vanilla anyway!

[@theunionofficialgovernment472]

Why not just spam truce breaks with Russia to get the cores because it looks weird that the land wasn’t annexed

[@xarxos5274]

Well first of all, because it would be slower, and since this is a speedrun I want to do it in the fastest way possible. Secondly, spamming truce breaks could potentially end up backfiring if I get too much rebellions or such.

[@Kedi1444]

Turkish-English translate Rusya etki alanında ama toprakları gelmedi neden?

[@xarxos5274]

English-Turkish translate: Polonya-Litvanya'yı oluşturduğunuzda, yalnızca kültür grubunuzun parçası olan ülkeleri entegre etmiş olursunuz. Bu yüzden Polonya'yı entegre ediyorum, ancak Rusya'yı benim alanımın bir parçası olmalarına rağmen entegre etmiyorum.

[@wiel5908]

bruh you look almost like a certain guy i knew in high school appearance wise

[@xarxos5274]

Oh really? You didn't go to high school in northern Sweden then I presume? :P

[@wiel5908]

@@xarxos5274 No, i'm from south america, but my friend had a similar hairstyle and glasses

[@xarxos5274]

@@wiel5908 I see, cool!

[@Mrcheekymonkeyisback]

Lmao I'm saying in my mind. REALLY HOW. Sounds impossible especially on a speed run ...

[@xarxos5274]

Nothing is impossible! :D

[@oh_itzcherry5820]

Idol

[@oh_itzcherry5820]

Idol really you are a GODD! Haha

[@theomegapyrope9715]

now form india as the united kingdom

[@xarxos5274]

What, start as the United Kingdom and just release and switch to play as India or what? :P

[@thispleasesthen.u.t.8334]

This is Poland-Russia

[@xarxos5274]

I mean kinda!

[@user-sm5sj6mg2t]

This is just 4D chess

[@Bigzthegreat]

thank you for this, as these speedrunning strats can help for the actual game but i expected you to annex all your cores from russia, not for you to disgustingly annex only poland

[@xarxos5274]

No problem! Well, annexing all the Polish cores in Russia unfortunately is a bit slower than just sphering them, so in the interest of speedrunning I had to do it this way.

[@miguelrodriguezcimino1674]

There are critical points left unexplained. For example, how did you take 3 substates from Guangxi?? You need the war score to go up, but you can get only 50% from battles, taking more than one substate requires more than that. If you rely on passive warscore from China unable to get ocupation in Korea, by the time you get enough jingoism to add another war goal you lost all earned warscore by not being able to occupy yourself your claimed states. Furthermore, when you add a wargoal, your warscore goes down and you have to get it back up. My guess is, contrary to what I can see in the video you can't wait for China to come to Korea, you need to go on the offensive. You need to do some serious praying to RNGjesus to pull this off and it still would take a lot of save scumming. The Ottomans falling to rank 15 that fast? The Pope granting military access to 2Sic? In all my attempts the Ottomans fell beyond rank 9 and that was just because I pushed them

[@xarxos5274]

First of all, if you want a more complete picture of the run, I have the full unedited version linked in the description. But to answer your questions: I didn't take 3 substates from Guangxi, just two, whose combined warscore only added up to 44. So the battle warscore on its own would be enough for that, but it's also possible to get more through blockades and by waiting to add the war goals until China has gotten more negative tickers from Korea. I opted not to take more than that though to play it safe and to get the war done faster. As for the RNG, yes there is a decent amount of RNG involved, especially in the early parts of the run. I had to restart quite a few times before it all lined up, and when I redid this as a real-time speedrun recently I had to restart even more. I'm not sure how likely the Ottomans are to fall that far on their own, but it happens from time to time. The Pope granting access to Two Sicilies also seems like a bit of a coin toss in my experience. Fortunately, neither of those things are absolutely crucial and only happened to be convenient for me here.

[@piotrsobota6402]

Can You borrow me some of your hairs ?? i will be bold soon same as like Poland when i tried to restore it 3 times for like 8h+ each game :D now i will do it thanks :D

[@xarxos5274]

Haha well I could send you the hairs that get stuck on my hair brush when I brush my hair, if you'd like! :D Good luck on your Poland restoration either way!

[@royvalles]

You made it easy lol

[@xarxos5274]

It wasn't that easy really :)

[@royvalles]

@@xarxos5274 i know it isn't but you made it look like that

[@xarxos5274]

@@royvalles Ah, well thank you :)

[@cat_city2009]

2:00 At that point, why wouldn't you just use cheat codes? It's effectively the same thing.

[@xarxos5274]

You mean for lowering infamy in this specific situation, or just in general?

[@cat_city2009]

@@xarxos5274 Sort of both, but especially the infamy lowering bit. But hey, play the game how you like. I support all Victoria content because it's a pretty obscure game.

[@xarxos5274]

@@cat_city2009 Well, the main thing is that I'm doing these as competitive speedruns, and as in any competition you need consistent rules. The simplest rules to define are to basically say "anything you can do in-game using the game's mechanics, without the console, are fair game". So exploits are fine since they still have their limits and are quite situational, but the console is banned since it would make just about any challenge completely trivial. And just in general I find it very fun and interesting to see how far you can push the game while only relying on its regular mechanics (even if you use them in unintended ways), whereas using the console would kinda defeat the purpose of that playstyle.

[@cat_city2009]

@@xarxos5274 Fair enough. I guess one alternative is using console commands, but only certain ones and/or under certain circumstances. It's weird that I've always been okay with use of cheat codes/console commands but never use exploits etc. Fingers crossed that Victoria 3 doesn't suck. I haven't played any of the EUIV style games.

[@xarxos5274]

@@cat_city2009 You could do that I guess, but it seems that forbidding the console altogether is a more natural place to draw the line, and also easier for moderators to verify that the run is legit. As you say, everyone plays this game differently, and I can understand those who like the to use the console sometimes!

[@melikered1103]

18:30 Dios mio thats not poland lithuania...

[@xarxos5274]

That's a matter of opinion :)

[@melikered1103]

​@@xarxos5274 >has no warsaw >has no lithuania >he still calls it poland-lithuania I KNEEEEEL

[@boringperson1]

Hi

[@xarxos5274]

Hi

[@KsJudas]

But you didn't form Poland-Lithuania you just formed Po d-Li ia, that's unfair :)

[@xarxos5274]

You got me. I hoped nobody would notice, but alas :(

[@Kvothe1994]

no no, do it just with plc borders, not ... this

[@xarxos5274]

This is all that the category requires, so that's what I did. Reclaiming all the cores would actually not be any more difficult, only slightly slower.

[@MrDainemudda]

those are some ugly ass borders... good job !!!

[@xarxos5274]

You're not wrong! And thanks! :D

[@XGDoctorwho]

dislike

[@xarxos5274]

There's a button for that you know, you don't actually have to comment!